It happened at last! Google finally break out from the Chinese command to censor web results. Yes, as they have said in January 12 that they will stop censoring search results in mainland China, they did it Monday this week. Google is now redirecting search queries from on Google.cn to their Hong Kong servers at Google.com.hk, where censoring is not implemented.

Chinese regulators, on the other hand criticized Google for breaking their promise to the Chinese government. They also accused Google of connivance with US government with information imperialism.

Image by Wikipedia Commons

Google has been censoring search results in mainland China for several years now. But in January, after the alleged hacker attacks from China on Google’s infrastructure causing Google to lose some intellectual properties, the company has broken its silence. They announced that they will be stopping the filtering of search results of Google.cn and will just leave it to the regulators. They said that if the government will force them to, they will be closing their Chinese office.

Google’s cry for foul play leads to series of negotiations with the Chinese regulators. After more than a month long of talk, it seems that the two parties won’t reach an agreement. In an interview with Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, the exec mentioned that “something will happen soon”. It appears he is referring to this! Something really did happen last Monday!

China has one of the most complicated internet-filtering systems in the world and is commonly referred to as the “great firewall of China”. They have been censoring the internet for topics they deemed “politically sensitive”. Human rights activists have been criticizing the government about this censorship but with no success. Google is the last among these protesters.

With 384 Million, China has the world’s most number of internet users and is the fastest growing internet market. Google currently holds 35.6% market share in the country. Losing China may